When I started my career as a journalist a quarter century ago, mainstream news was the glamour child. It was where you unearthed stories that people read, the scoops, the articles that won you awards. The business pages were dry, unattractive, and the finance desk was where geeks got a job.
But today, in the aftermath of the Great Recession, business and financial news is mainstream.
For journalists covering oil, it's been enhanced by the up-and-down price of crude (though it's all been up most recently). And this has brought the researchers, the analysts, the data watchers and number crunchers into the limelight. For everyone wants to know: what the heck is going on?
And now even as crude futures hit highs not seen for almost two years, the person who can explain the story -- or at least try -- is even more important.
Yes, unrest in the Middle East is a reason. First, there was the reaction to Egyptian tension, driven by fears over whether the Suez Canal will be closed and affect the movement of oil tankers. Then there was Libya and again oil prices went wild. Enhancing that was the fact that output of Libya's highly-desirable sweet crude was affected. That helped explain it... right?
And the unrest has spread its tentacles to Yemen. But then why did oil prices see some drastic changes late last week? But of course, it was because of the peace proposal discussed by Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez and Libya's Moammar Qadhafi.
But do these incidents really explain the volatility of oil prices? Or is it the result of speculation, the standard blame that has been dished out by oil producers ever since -- and actually, long before -- crude futures shot up to stop just short of $150/b a couple of years ago?
Former stockbroker and author Robert Beckman said in a book he wrote more than two decades ago that "the notion of enrichment through speculative endeavor is built on a necessary foundation of error." In other words, the only way you will make a large profit is at the expense of someone else's mistake.
But human nature being what it is, no one even imagines that he will be the one to make that mistake. After all, as Beckman said, the seductive nature of speculation lies in its promise not only to make you rich but to do so quickly with minimal effort.
But who would be called the speculators? Would the refineries that have been spending money to upgrade so that they can process heavier sour crudes said to be speculating on the shortage of lighter sweet crudes, which as a result becoming more expensive? Or were they just being careful and farsighted?
The fact remains that though no one can accurately know the future, it does not stop anyone from doing so and there is always someone who is willing to listen. Which is why though we love to read Nostradamus, events still keep repeating, whether they are the crash of Wall Street, the banking industry or the property sector. And the search for the geek who can explain it will start all over again.
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